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Addressing a wide range of conditions--including digestive problems, anxiety, and depression -- this easy-to-use guide presents simple ways to relieve the stress related to some of today's most pressing health problems. Authors Allison Post and Stephen Cavaliere explain the devastating impact that imbalances of gut microbiota and the microbiome can have on digestion, and they demonstrate proven techniques to reconnect with our bodies and reclaim our health. The Gut Wellness Guide expands upon the method previously introduced in the authors' first book, Unwinding the Belly. Unwinding is a clear and accessible way to connect the "gut brain" to the "main brain" and to relax, tune into your body, and create a customized action plan to heal.

Allison Post is a Somatic Educator and Integrative Medicine Health Coach with over thirty years of experience helping individuals rediscover inherent health and happiness. Her speciality is to draw upon the deep wells of both modern and traditional medical wisdom to help people incorporate breath, gastrointestinal balance, embodiment skills, and movement into their daily life with presence and joy.

Stephen Cavaliere is a writer and fitness enthusiast. He holds several advanced fitness certifications and specializes in strength training for older adults.

Together, Post and Cavaliere have practiced and taught many forms of bodywork at their own institute and at several renowned spas in the California and the Southwest. They currently teach Unwinding the Belly, Bridge to Embodiment, and Embodied Touch in Psychotherapy in the Northern California Bay Area and abroad.

In The Shimmering Face of Evil, Inspector Max Hamilton leaves the village of St. Basil in the Midlands of England in the spring of 1938 for a holiday in London. He soon meets Sir John Cross, the head of the Special Operations section of Scotland Yard. At the urging of his friend, Cameron Philby, Max accepts a position and the country policeman soon finds himself in the center of London's upper class social milieu. The murder of a beautiful adventuress sets in motion a tale of murder, intrigue and treachery. Inspector Hamilton is charged with uncovering those who have been corrupted by the shimmering face of evil.

Arlene Rubens Balin is a third generation San Franciscan and now resides in Sonoma, California with her husband, Kon. This is Mrs. Balins third book. The first was Born Stateless: A Young Man's Story 1923 to 1957, a memoir of her husband's life in Japan and Shanghai before and throughout World War II. Her second book was an English mystery set in the midlands of England just before the war titled With Intent to Murder: An Inspector Maxwell Hamilton Mystery.

In the spring of 1938 Inspector Max Hamilton leaves the village of St. Basil in the Midlands of England for a holiday in London. He soon meets Sir John Cross, the head of the Special Operations section of Scotland Yard. At the urging of his friend, Cameron Philby, Max accepts a position and the country policeman soon finds himself in the center of London's upper class social milieu.

Bette Lamb'sThe Russian Girl is based on a true story of a woman who escapes from a high security nursing home. Lost in a New Mexico desert on the hottest day of the year, her delirium reveals a compelling story of a young immigrant Russian girl forced to come to America. Her life becomes one of upheaval, lost love, and activism in a crushing, brutal 20th century journey.

RN Gina Mazzio is back in Bone Point, the eight installment in J.J. and Bette Lamb’s “Bone” medical thriller series. This 3D thriller—drugs, deception and death—is set in a soon-to-close VA psychiatric hospital. Her brother Vinnie launches a dangerous quest that soon pulls in and threatens pregnant Gina.

Bette Lamb & & J.J. Lamb have co-authored a dozen crime novels, plus a few other individual fiction titles as both books and short stories. Bette is not only a writer, she’s an award-winning painter, sculptor, and ceramist. She’s also an RN and knows Gina Mazzio quite well. J.J. has spent his entire career behind a keyboard as journalist, freelance writer, editor, and fiction author, plus, when the occasion demands, he’s a competent jack-of-all-trades. The Lambs have lived in Virginia, New Mexico, New York, Nevada, and currently make their home in Northern California.

A page-turner in the most exquisite sense, Human Tribe is a book of over 160 portraits that express the emotive beauty and grace of the human face. Documentary photographer Alison Wright traveled to every continent to capture the diversity of the human tribe, from toddlers to those who've lived a lifetime, and from South America to Africa, Asia, and points in between. Some of the people photographed are privileged, some live ordinary lives, and others live close to the land and in communities that may not last another generation. Collectively, these surprising studies of the human face remind us of our common bond and the inherent dignity in being ourselves.

Alison Wright has spent a career traveling to all regions of the globe as a documentary photographer for National Geographic publications.

A page-turner in the most exquisite sense, this book of over 160 portraits expresses the emotive beauty and grace of the human face. Documentary photographer Alison Wright traveled to every continent to capture the diversity of the human tribe, from toddlers to those who've lived a lifetime, and from South America to Africa, Asia, and points in between.

Combining the infectious narration of Nick Hornby’s Funny Girl, the philosophical lyricism of Roberto Bolaño’s The Savage Detectives, and the mesmerizing power of Anna North’s The Life and Death of Sophie Stark, a breathtaking debut, brimming with youthful brio and irresistible humor, that chronicles a young man’s friendship with a most peculiar artist.

On a rooftop in Brooklyn on a spring night, a young intern and would-be writer, newly arrived from Copenhagen, meets the intriguing Ana Ivan. Clever and funny, with an air of mystery and melancholia, Ana is a performance artist, a mathematician, and a self-proclaimed time traveler. She is also bad luck, she confesses; she is from a cursed Romanian lineage.

Before long, the intern finds himself seduced by Ana’s enthralling stories—of her unlucky countrymen; of her parents’ romance during the worst years of Nicolae Ceaucescu’s dictatorship; of a Daylight Savings switchover gone horribly wrong. Ana also introduces him to her latest artistic endeavor. Following the astronomical rather than the Gregorian calendar, she is trying to alter her sense of time—an experiment that will lead her to live in complete darkness for one month.

Descending into the blackness with Ana, the intern slowly loses touch with his own existence, entangling himself in the lives of Ana, her starry-eyed mother Maria, and her raging math-prodigy father Ciprian. Peeling back the layers of her past, he eventually discovers the perverse tragedy that has haunted Ana’s family for decades and shaped her journey from the streets of Bucharest to the Atlas Mountains of Morocco and finally to New York City.

The Invention of Ana blurs the lines between narrative and memory, perception and reality, identity and authenticity. In his stunning debut novel, Mikkel Rosengaard illuminates the profound power of stories to alter the world around us—and the lives of the ones we love.

Come West and See is a work both timely and timeless. Set in the Redoubt, an isolated triangle of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming where an armed occupation of a wildlife refuge escalates into a separatist uprising, these stories explore the loneliness, insecurity, and frustration inherent to love and heartbreak. A lakeside wedding drunkenly devolves into a cruel charade; an unemployed carpenter joins a militia after his wife leaves him; and a former soldier raises the daughter of a dead comrade in a bunker beneath an abandoned farm. Maxim Loskutoff explores divisions both personal and political, offering startling insights into the wounds of the American people and a powerful new vision of the West.

Combining the infectious narration of Nick Hornby’s Funny Girl, the philosophical lyricism of Roberto Bolaño’s The Savage Detectives, and the mesmerizing power of Anna North’s The Life and Death of Sophie Stark, a breathtaking debut, brimming with youthful brio and irresistible humor, that chronicles a young man’s friendship with a most pe

Come West and See is a work both timely and timeless. Set in the Redoubt, an isolated triangle of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming where an armed occupation of a wildlife refuge escalates into a separatist uprising, these stories explore the loneliness, insecurity, and frustration inherent to love and heartbreak.

It's no surprise that surfers like to party. The 1960-70s image, bolstered by Tom Wolfe and Big Wednesday, was one of mild outlaws -- tanned boys refusing to grow up, spending their days drinking beer and smoking joints on the beach in between mindless hours in the water.

But in the 1980s, as surf brands morphed into multibillion-dollar companies, the derelict portrait began to harm business. The external surf image became Kelly Slater and Laird Hamilton, beacons of health, vitality, bravery, and clean-living.

Internally, though, surfing had moved on from booze and weed to its heart's true home, its soul's twin flame: cocaine. The rise of cocaine in American popular culture as the choice of rich, white elites was matched, then quadrupled, within surf culture. The parties got wilder, the nights stretched longer, the stories became more ridiculously unbelievable. And there has been no stopping, no dip in passion.

It is a forbidden love, and few, if any, outside the surf world know about this particular rhapsody. Drug use is kept very well-hidden, even from insiders, but evidence of its psychosis rears its head from time to time in the form of overdoses, bar fights, surf contests, murders, and cover-ups.

Cocaine + Surfing draws back the curtain on a hopped-up, sometimes-sexy, sometimes-deadly relationship and uses cocaine as the vehicle to expose and explain the utterly absurd surf industry to outsiders.

Chas Smith the author of Welcome to Paradise, Now Go to Hell (It Books, November 2013), which was optioned for television by Fox 21 (Homeland and Sons of Anarchy) with producers at Television 360 (Game of Thrones) and a finalist for the PEN Center USA Award for Nonfiction. Chas began his writing career as a foreign correspondent, penning pieces for Vice, Paper, and Blackbook, amongst others, from Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Somalia, Azerbaijan and Colombia which led to a brief career as a war correspondent for Current TV. After being kidnapped by Hezbollah during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war he transitioned to surf journalism where he was a featured writer at the brash Stab before becoming Editor at Large at Surfing Magazine. There he developed a reputation as the most controversial voices in the space. Matt Warshaw, author of the Encyclopedia of Surfing, calls him, "Bright and hyper-ironic." William Finnegan, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Barbarian Days, says that Chas, ..".calls it like he sees it and in surfing that's not usually the case." Chas Smith is the co-owner of a surf website, BeachGrit.

Betty Ford: First Lady, Women's Advocate, Survivor, Trailblazer is the inspiring story of an ordinary Midwestern girl thrust onto the world stage and into the White House under extraordinary circumstances. Setting a precedent as First Lady, Betty Ford refused to be silenced by her critics as she publicly championed equal rights for women, and spoke out about issues that had previously been taboo--breast cancer, depression, abortion, and sexuality. Privately, there were signs something was wrong. After a painful intervention by her family, she admitted to an addiction to alcohol and prescription drugs. Her courageous decision to speak out publicly sparked a national dialogue, and in 1982, she co-founded the Betty Ford Center, which revolutionized treatment for alcoholism and inspired the modern concept of recovery.

Lisa McCubbin also brings to light Gerald and Betty Ford's sweeping love story: from Michigan to the White House, until their dying days, their relationship was that of a man and woman utterly devoted to one another other--a relationship built on trust, respect, and an unquantifiable chemistry.

Based on intimate in-depth interviews with all four of her children, Susan Ford Bales, Michael Ford, Jack Ford, and Steven Ford, as well as family friends, and colleagues, Betty Ford: First Lady, Women's Advocate, Survivor, Trailblazer is a deeply personal, empathic portrait of an outspoken First Lady, who was first and foremost a devoted wife and mother. With poignant details and rare insight, McCubbin reveals a fiercely independent woman who had a lively sense of humor, unwavering faith, and an indomitable spirit -- the true story behind one of the most admired and influential women of our time.

Lisa McCubbin is the coauthor of four New York Times bestsellers: Five Presidents; Mrs. Kennedy and Me; Five Days in November; and The Kennedy Detail. A former television news anchor and reporter, she currently resides in the San Francisco Bay area.

An intimate and insightful biography of Betty Ford, the groundbreaking, candid, and resilient First Lady and wife of President Gerald Ford, from the #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of Five Presidents and Mrs.

From being attacked by possemen on a civil rights march in Alabama to becoming a federal fugitive in a cabin in Colorado, Jaxon-Bear’s life then leads us to the uncharted Andes, a Zen Monastery in Japan and a Sufi initiation in Morocco. We are taken on a roller coaster adventure of discovery in the search for freedom and finally finding true love and fullfilment. We see the tests and challenges that confront all of us as we navigate through life in the search for happiness.

Eli Jaxon-Bear has worked as a mailboy, dishwasher, steel-worker, teacher and organic farmer. He was a community organizer with VISTA in Chicago and Detroit before entering a doctoral program at the Graduate School of International Studies in Denver, Colorado. He has been living with his partner and wife since 1976. They currently reside in Ashland, Oregon. Eli meets people and teaches through the Leela Foundation.

Tickets: $29 (includes book + speaking and opportunity to meet Dessa in the signing line)

In her literary debut memoir, rapper and singer Dessa gives a candid account of her life in the van as a hard-touring musician, her determination to beat long odds to make a name for herself, and her struggle to fall out of love with someone in her band. Raw and intimate, Dessa demonstrates just how far the mind can travel while the body is on the six-hour ride to the next rap show.

Dessa defies category -- she is an academic with an international rap career; a lyrical writer fascinated by behavioral science; and a funny, charismatic performer dogged by blue moods and a perseverant case of heartache. In "The Fool That Bets Against Me," Dessa wonders if the romantic anguish that's helped her write so many sad songs might be an insurable professional asset. To find out, she applies to Geico for coverage. "A Ringing in the Ears" tells the story of her father building an airplane in their backyard garage--a task that took him almost seven years. The essay titled "Congratulations" reflects on recording a song for The Hamilton Mixtape in a Minneapolis basement, straining for a high note and hoping for a break. The last piece in the collection, "Call off Your Ghost," relays the fascinating project Dessa undertook with a team of neuroscientists that employed fMRI technology and neurofeedback to try to clinically excise her romantic feelings for an old flame.

Her onstage and backstage stories are offset by her varied fascinations -- she studies sign language, algebra, neuroanatomy -- and My Own Devices is a prism of her intellectual life. Her writing is infused with fascinating bits of science and sociology, philosophical insights, and an abiding tenderness for the people she tours with and the people she leaves behind to do it.

Dessa finds unconventional approaches to all of her subjects -- braiding her lived experience with academic research and a poet's tone and timing. In the vein of thinkers who defy categorization, we get the debut of a deft, likable, and unusual voice.

Pause . . . breathe . . . smile. Three small words, yet each contains a universe of wisdom. With Pause, Breathe, Smile, Gary Gach invites us to bring the practice of mindfulness into every moment of our lives.

Writing for students of all levels, Gach draws on 50-plus years of study and practice in this elegant and accessible presentation of three central aspects of mindful living. The Pause is about setting our intention before we think, speak, or act--the ethical dimension of mindfulness. When we Breathe we unite mind, body, and spirit, making every moment an opportunity for meditation. With a Smile, we open to a wisdom beyond words. This simple process will "water your innate seeds of awakening, to help you pave your own path to total fulfillment and peace."

For all who may wish to explore mindfulness in their lives as a healing and transformative practice, remember three little words: Pause, Breathe, Smile.

Gary Gach is a writer, mystic, and lifelong meditator who has engaged in many roles: actor, bookshop clerk, dishwasher, hospital admin, office temp, stevedore, teacher, and typographer. Lay-ordained by Thich Nhat Hanh in 2008, he has authored eight previous books including The Complete Idiot's Guide to Buddhism (Alpha, 2001). Gary lives in San Francisco.

Pause . . . breathe . . . smile. Three small words, yet each contains a universe of wisdom. Let the title be your guide in this inspiring book on awakening to the full depths of mindful living. The Pause is about setting our intention before we think, speak, or act--the ethical dimension of mindfulness.